Story 110 - The Way to Realization

At a certain meeting in India wise men were there, very wise men were present, and sacred texts from the Hindu Scriptures were being recited, and when explained by the savants, one of the audience, at the time when the meeting was about to dissolve, spoke about a certain sage who had come to the town, and was living on the bank of the river, and he praised this saint very highly. The people then became naturally anxious to know more about this saint. There was a parrot who was listening to the talk, or you might say a slave, hearing this conversation about the sage that had come to the town. This Parrot that was confined in the cage or this slave asked the gentleman who was talking about the sage, to go to the age on behalf of this imprisoned parrot or enslaved person, and ask him to tell certain means of escape for this confined bird or enslaved person. Well the gentleman, who had first interview d the great saint, went to him at the time when he was bathing in the river, and put to him this question, "How could that bird, parrot, or say, that particular person, confined in a cage, be released?

How could he be released?" Just when the question was put, the sage was seen to be carried off by the torrent; he was observed by the people of the town as dead. The people who were witnessing this state of the sage were astonished,' and they rebuked the person who put this message or who conveyed this message from the parrot or from the slave. The people thought that the saint was fainting or was swooning through pity for the imprisoned parrot, or through sympathy for the bound slave. The saint did not recover that day, so it appeared. Well, next day, when the meeting was held again at the place where the encaged bird was, or where the confined slave was, the parrot, or you might say, the slave asked the gentleman who had interviewed the saint, whether the parrot's message had been conveyed to him. The gentleman said that the message had been conveyed, and added that he was sorry to convey the message from such a wretched fellow as the encaged bird, or from such a sorry person as the bound slave. The parrot or the slave inquired why he was sorry. Then the gentleman said that just when the message was conveyed, the sage fainted away. And all the people were wondering, were astonished, what all this meant. But the parrot or the slave explained the whole secret. The parrot or you might say, the slave was not intelligent, but immediately after hearing that, the parrot fainted. He fainted and was dead to all intents and purposes. There the bystanders were surprised, lo, this must be a strange message, which had caused the death of two. When the message was conveyed to the saint, the saint died, and when the message was repeated to the parrot or the slave, the slave died. Do you know what happened next? When the bystanders saw that the parrot was dead, they thought it no longer worthwhile to keep the parrot imprisoned. They opened the cage, and immediately the parrot flew out and said, "O people, O audience, who gather here every day to hear the sacred Scriptures, you do not know how realization, salvation, inspiration is to be achieved.

I have learnt it to-day from the answer to my message that I received from that saint. The saint did not faint, the saint as it were answered my message; the saint by fainting, by falling in swoon, told me the way to realization. The path to salvation, the way to realization is apparent death, that and nothing else, crucifixion and nothing less, there is no other way to inspiration. The way to realization is getting above the body, rising to that state spiritually, rising to the state of inner salvation, where the body is as it were dead, where the small personality is consciousless, is altogether lost, is entirely left behind, that is the way to Life.

MORAL: The way to realization is to rise above the body into the real Self, or to lose the consciousness of the little self.

Vol. 1 (155-157)